For instance, there could be a few written up by Agent Perseus (Medusa's head is an SCP which O5-council member Athena commandeers for use on her Aegis project), or Theseus and Hercules or Odysseus encountering and neutralizing threats? (The Sirens would be Keter, etc.)

If no one has done that, I'd be interested in trying it out, or reading someone else's version.

I don't think so. We do already have a couple mainlisters that reference Greek mythology though.

For instance, there could be a few written up by Agent Perseus (Medusa's head is an SCP which O5-council member Athena commandeers for use on her Aegis project), or Theseus and Hercules or Odysseus encountering and neutralizing threats? (The Sirens would be Keter, etc.)

I'm not sure about this being an -EX (what would be the thing that was once thought anomalous, but is now explained by science?) or a -J (I don't see how it would be funny).

Such an article would be written by the hand of Perseus or someone similar. The only articles written by people more than a hundred years ago are EX articles (like the one about slave revolution) or J articles (like the one about fire).

I assume that such an article would not be appropriate for the main list. As for not being funny, anything could be made funny. The main place to find humor would be in reinterpreting classic muthology in foundation terms. Whether it is actually funny or not would be determined by ratings, but something could be written that was attempting to be funny.

To be fair, I don't think MathBrush is saying that -EX or -J skips can only be historical. They're saying that only -EX or -J skips can be historical.

I think that is correct - I'm not aware of any mainlist SCP articles that are written from a perspective of 19th century or earlier, because most headcanons have the Foundation as a 20th century institution. Of course, plenty of skips include older historical documents - so you could have a mainlist skip where the Foundation finds a document written by/about Perseus containing Medusa. But if you wanted to write a skip format that was *written by Perseus*, I think the only way to do that is as an -EX or a -J (as per the examples MathBrush gave).

That said, I don't think that this idea would work particularly as an -EX (because most -EXs don't allow for the Foundation existing in Ancient Greek times) and for it to be -J, it would need a lot of work to make the idea funny (I don't really see an angle).

which is currently rated at +561. This SCP Wiki entry objectively shows that the idea of taking an ancient culture and rewriting it into an SCP format is funny to a large subset of readers. There’s a difference between ‘this idea can not be made funny’ and ‘I doubt your ability to make this funny’; I doubt my ability as well, but that doesn’t make the idea itself unfunny.

After finding this page, I realized that it was the reason I thought this sort of think could work as -EX or as a -J, because it is both.

DrMagnus, thanks for your response. I wasn’t implying that this sort of thing was qualified to be an -EX article; my meaning was that it didn’t seem appropriate for a main list SCP, as the only articles I had found written before the 1900s were also not on the main list, and were -EX articles or -J articles. So, it seemed that being labeled as an -EX or -J is necessary, but not, as you pointed out, sufficient. psul gave a good explanation of my position.

Edit:

Actually, this gave me a better idea. Why not do a main list SCP where the foundation has access to extremely limited time travel (all causal loops are already established; foundation can only go back in time when a forward reaching connection has already been established from the past, and none of their actions change history, because history has already happened). It is implied that much of mythology stems from SCPs and the attempts of agents to overcome them. However, only one SCP is discussed: Hercules. The 12 labors of Hercules are different attempts by the foundation agents (who attempted to ignore the fate implied by the causal structure) to neutralize Hercules by pitting him against other SCP’s. His final death/containment only comes with assistance from someone in the past, and, again, was always meant to happen.

This SCP Wiki entry objectively shows that the idea of taking an ancient culture and rewriting it into an SCP format is funny to a large subset of readers.

…not really? I thought the joke was "what if there was a caveman Foundation", not "wow caveman culture is pretty funny amirite".

It is implied that much of mythology stems from SCPs and the attempts of agents to overcome them. However, only one SCP is discussed: Hercules. The 12 labors of Hercules are different attempts by the foundation agents (who attempted to ignore the fate implied by the causal structure) to neutralize Hercules by pitting him against other SCP’s.

I don't buy it, especially since myths are so well-known worldwide today and that would be a huge secrecy liability for the Foundation, right?

Also, plenty of people have tried to write up the 12 Labors of Heracles before, but I don't think they were successful if my memory serves.

I don't buy it, especially since myths are so well-known worldwide today and that would be a huge secrecy liability for the Foundation, right?

Not only that, but the Foundation is all about the preservation of the perception of normalcy. Unless it has a potential impact on the here and now, they probably wouldn't care too much. Hercules is long dead, so he's self-contained. The skin of the Nemian Lion, provided it hasn't rotted away by now, would be worth locking up since it's in the here and now.

Mucking about with time travel is pretty much opposite of the Foundation's mission goals. Unless they were supposed to, in which case they'll do it.